I forgot Facebook. They have 3 large buildings, each on 160 acres (480 total). To the north of them across the street are 2 "google' datacenters on 320 acres. They say google when you lookup the address, but the place is surrounded by razor wire and there are no Google signs. Likely Google government contract data centers. A mile north of those two is an Amazon warehouse on 160 acres.
If we could plop down 1200-1400 MW tomorrow, the power could be sold almost immediately to datacenters. That's why they are trying to restart nuke plants. They relabeled nuke as carbon free power because they can't build enough renewables for the 24/7 data center loads.
Tomorrow is a process, since we are stuck with studies, regulations, permitting, and supply chain issues that makes building new gas plants closer to an 8 year process. We would need to buy gas turbines today to have them in waiting and those have gone up 20-30% in the last year. Land purchase, Interconnect application 2-2 1/2 years, turbine waiting list 2-3 years, GSU waiting list 18 months to 2 years, air permit 1 year, design and siting studies 6 months to 1 year, contractor bidding and negotiation 6 months to 1 year, construction 2-3 years ....
If I start today, I may get something online by 2033-2035, but will need to spend hundreds of millions upfront to hold my place in line. Land acquisition and fees for the interconnection study will run around $5 million alone. Total project cost, somewhere in the $1.5-2 Billion range.
That's before you get to talk to the public and get pushback from them.
Meta's data centers.
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Google datacenters
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There is a new data center being built on the north side of town.
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